Curing Adhesives with Woven Fabrics Made of Polymer Optical Fibre and PET Yarn

UV bonding technology’s biggest limitation is the need of a transparent joining part to be able to cure the adhesive with an external light source. This is to be solved with ribbon fabrics made with polymer optical fibres (POF) which guide the UV light into the adhesive bond. On the basis of previously published experiments, a set of POF fabrics with different thread densities and weft materials is evaluated optically regarding the emitted UV light intensity and mechanically regarding the shear strength of the adhesive bonds. A factorial experiment plan indicates that higher tensile lap-shear strength comes with lower weft fineness and higher weft density. The maximum shear strength achieved was 8.3 MPa with potential room for improvement due to non-cohesive failure, relatively high weft densities and a comparatively low powered UV light source.

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